** Update: Where Things Stand Right Now...**

In this special episode, we take a step back and have an honest conversation about the future of Bench Jeweler Memes.

After a lot of behind-the-scenes discussions, recent developments have led us to a point where some decisions need to be made. We’ve never been ones to sugarcoat things, and this episode is no different.

We talk through what’s been happening, where things currently stand, and what the future may (or may not) look like moving forward.

This isn’t an easy conversation—but it’s an important one.

We appreciate everyone who has supported us along the way.

More to come...

*Shhh.. April Fools*

Follow us on Instagram & YouTube @benchjewelermemes

// Want to support the page & podcast?

https://buymeacoffee.com/benchjewelermemes

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Well, good morning, Brad. Good morning, Dusty. You know what I forgot? I I I said I didn't want to do this. I forgot to take off my jacket. So this is our first time using some new mics. Some new equipment.

unknown 0:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

So we'll see how that goes. All right. Sorry, I meant to do that. That was so annoying. Well, Brad, this is um people are going to see that we posted an episode randomly outside of our normal schedule, and they're going to be confused. So I don't know if we should I mean, I well, we talked about it.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Just get straight to it. And we're all right to it. We gotta we gotta tell the people. I really want to get ahead of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

And it's gonna be frustrating when I hate that there's gonna be some people who listen to this um and they're gonna be so confused. Because they're gonna they're gonna see it on, you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and they're gonna be confused. Yeah. And probably a little hurt.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

I can imagine.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Yeah. So here's what we're this is this is a an off episode for a reason. Um it probably will not be as funny as other episodes. Because we have to kind of just kinda kinda give you some updates on where we are. With the podcast, with the Instagram account, with the with the old Facebook. Um as you guys know, we joke a lot about sponsorships.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

And um and our kind of it almost seems like we've been a little desperate for 'em. Mm-hmm. I mean, there have been times. Um we went back and forth on um hey, we really need a sponsorship to keep doing this because we have so much work to do, and if it doesn't offset that, then it's hard to take time out of our out of our busy days and our business to to really to focus on this. Mm-hmm. And then we've swung the other way, the other pendulum, the other pendulum, the same pendulum, just other way. Uh, of like, you know what, we want this to just be solely funded by our listeners so that we can be free to be whoever we want to be, say what we want to say, and just be true to ourselves. And it's been hard to balance that.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Right. I mean, we definitely wanted to be I mean, we wanted to be true to ourselves and and just be able to just call it call it as we see it.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

So we've actually been so over the last what several weeks, we've actually been contacted by multiple companies, um, wanting to advertise, wanting to be sponsors, and we just kept saying, like, you know, we're gonna think about it, we're gonna think about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

And then um because it it was very important to us if we uh endorse the product that we use it ourselves, we trust it, we love it. That that that was the way we thought.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

And also being such a small business ourselves, it's like, you know, some of these these big companies were like, you know, we don't really use that, we can't really recommend that. Mm-hmm. Yep. But then, you know, again, the pendulum swings the other side of like, hey, how long can we realistically do this um in the way that we have it set up now? Right. It's time consuming, and um we have work, we have family, galore, family. Um, but the most interesting uh person that has reached out to us was Aliyah from JHJ. Yeah. And we know a lot of people, you know, love her, hate her. We can appreciate who uh what she's built. I think we've always shown that we've appreciated the kind of the community that she's built, albeit it is, you know, it gets a little quirky over there. Not everybody agrees with everything that's said and done and how things operate. Oh, I think it's great. Yeah, uh just a reminder, Brad's not on JHJ.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

But um Yeah, but when she she reached out, we thought I mean uh as of a few hours ago, I really think it's great. But continue.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Um but when she reached out, it started as, you know, can we kind of collaborate? And it just it didn't seem like a good fit. We were having some creative kind of friction, I guess. I don't know, as we say. It's like, hey, this is this is how the way I want to I wanna do it, this is how we should and she was just like, absolutely not. Yeah, she just wanted to kind of button us up a little bit, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, and um keep us on the straight and narrow, which now now I I think that's the right way to go.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

And and thanks to, you know, listeners like Ron, who he's helped us kind of reach out to Aaliyah and kind of say, like, hey, why don't, you know, why don't we why don't we let um Bench Dooler memes kind of just have like a takeover day if you can do it at a discounted rate or free, and she you know very quickly said uh no to that, which I understand, you know, she's got a business to run to. A great business. And um so in the back and forth, um, she ends up proposing, what if we just absorb Binstaler memes into J HJ? Yeah, I guess she was talking to her people. Yeah, and so I'm like, well, what do you mean absorb? I know, right? Like are you a sponge? Apparently she is. And and so she was basically just you know saying, um, you know, she's got she's got a actually a pretty tight grip on the jewelry industry. Uh one of the most influential people in the industry. She really is. And I think she recognized that she's not quite as funny as we are. Yeah. But she does have a sense of humor.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Right. Well, she she's that's where her focus is not on the humor side of things. So I think she's thinking, hey, let me just bring in guys that already know the that that side. So anyway, she she basically let me throw some money at them.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Yeah. So she she puts an offer out there, and I'm thinking this is like a wow, that's like, you know, but it was it started out as, you know, hey, for you know, we're not gonna say dollar amounts, but for this many dollars a month. Basically, I'll sponsor you, and but but I get a lot more creative control, and I get to give you the podcast topics, and I will, you know, recommend the guest. You know, I really want you guys to have like a niche that Star Gems needs to be on, and Steve Hart's, and you know, all these big, big names and players and J H J and Maury, of course. You know, yeah. And so he has some things to sell. Yeah, and um, so I don't know, it just felt a little it felt a little uncomfortable, but also the money was pretty good. Pretty good. And so I was like, I don't know. I was like, it's not about the money, blah blah blah blah blah. Go back and forth for a couple weeks. And essentially, she offers just one big final number, like, can I just can we just all own the brand, buy you out?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

And let me say when I did not expect the number, I mean it.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Obviously, I had to talk to Brad, run everything by Brad. Brad, what was your thought when I'm because you're not on JHJ and you're not getting these messages. So what what were your thoughts when when I started just bringing this up?

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Obviously, I thought you were joking. I mean, that number for what we do. Um Yeah, I can see that.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Well, and also, you know, we've we've joked about like I think first episode you said, I'm doing this so that I can get out of this industry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Throw back to episode one, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Yeah. I mean, I was half joking, but not really. I mean, especially now. I see what I was saying.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Yeah. So after quite a bit of back and forth, me, Brad, our our spouses. Oh, we've our team. Yeah, our team, yeah, that's right. We came to the conclusion of like this is kind of too good to pass up. Um, but you know, it feels a little weird because we really want to be a part of this, but also we recognize, like, hey, we're relinquishing all control to to Aliyah and whoever whatever team she sets up to to to start running the account. Um, she has she she sent me a ton of ideas and like memes and reels that you know her and her people have been working on. Mm-hmm. I mean, honestly, some of them were uh pretty funny.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

I mean, I guess they were okay. And um and truth be told, that's the part that is the most time consuming and it kind of sucks your creative the creative density. Creative. Yeah. It sucks it right out of me. And because it's like after if I don't post for a day or two, it's just like, oh my gosh, like we're gonna start losing followers, and that just weighs on your shoulders of like I just gotta put out something. So then it I end up putting out something that's not that funny. And then the next week I spend an entire week trying to make a faux horror movie real. That right. So it's like this, just this it was just felt so imbalanced. And so I'm like, well, if if for this amount of money, if if she will take on that responsibility of having to create content, yeah, edit content, right, post, interact in all the comments, respond to every DM. If that's you know, she's got it, she's got a team for that. It's just me and Brad here.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

So what what exactly are our responsibilities now within the JHJ umbrella parent company that we love?

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Yeah, you guys will see this. Um you'll see all this start to pop up um this morning on on Jewelers Helping Jewelers. So if you're not on there, um I definitely recommend trying to get on. Um we're gonna try to fill you in the best you can if for some reason you're not. It will also be simultaneously posting to our account, but you will see some sh uh changes effective immediately. And of course, the biggest one that kind of was the saddest is just as we were starting to work on merch and take it seriously. Like we have merch sitting here. We just were trying to wait until the perfect time to release it. I mean, hoodies, mug, I mean what what else, Brad, we got?

SPEAKER_01 10:21

I mean everything.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

We've got uh benches. Yeah. We yeah, we started working with a company to do custom bench jeweler memes benches benches. Yep, free shipping.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Um we've been trying to do something with Tesla as like a little um yeah, just uh they call it so the new model is is called the Juniper, and this was gonna be the bench jeweler juniper. Um it's gonna be great. Sounds exciting.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Anyway, so speaking of exciting dusty so yeah, we were we we we started just that and that's part part of it was like Aliah, we've spent quite literally a lot of money um on merch. And she pretty much nicked that immediately because we were hoping like you would she would just take over like control of it and like do all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But essentially she's um we're gonna be rebranding um as in so instead of at bench jeweller memes, it will be at JHJ Memes. Man. Which, you know, I get it. Like I get it, you know, we're excited. Love it. Um I know it feels like we're withholding some stuff and we have to for legal purposes. Mm-hmm. And it's bittersweet, right? I mean, it is bittersweet, but um it's the end of an era, but it's a it's a it's a the beginning of a new era, of an exciting one, I think.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

I did not know first-class tickets to Europe were this affordable. Okay. I'm sorry. I I'm just looking at you know, some some travel plans, you know.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

I mean, it was nice that you your wife wasted no time. Oh, she was like, yes. She's like, um Tesla, new Tesla right now. Yep, yep. Um I have not quite told my wife because she doesn't really follow all this, um, but um she will be shocked when I come home with uh a new Jeep next week.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

I mean, I can I cannot believe after this sum of money that you went and bought a Jeep, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Well now I have now I'll have the extra funds to um immediately upgrade it and fix uh all the things. Yep, yep, yep. So um I don't really know how we end this. I mean, I know we wanted to get straight to the point, we want to get ahead of it. Uh we want to give everybody, our listeners, a warning, um, first and foremost. Um you can still for another twenty-four hours, you can still uh buy us a coffee. Um after that it'll be buy Aaliyah a coffee. Yeah, I think is she gonna run, I think she's gonna let us set that up for the rest of the month because it takes people a while to get to the podcast. So up until the end of April, you can still buy us a coffee. Um, I don't want you to.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

She is taking 45% of it though.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

Just yeah, so if you could if you were gonna give, you know, um$10, maybe consider$14.50. Is that how the math works? Uh probably. I don't have to worry about math now. Um the only math I have to worry about is cha-ching. But I also don't I also I don't want people to think like why would I send you buy me a coffee money based on this buyout? That seems but the only way that I know the only way like the way I receive love and admiration is through money. Right. So if that is our love, if you've laughed, if you've ever liked, commented, or smiled, or giggled, or laughed, or shared, did I say laugh too many times? Um matter now. If you've had an idea, if you've sent me a DM, if you've listened to more than 45 seconds of an episode, any episode. You owe us. I think now's the time to go ahead and and send in that thank you in the form of dollars.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Because I mean just because.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Uh and I'm I am so excited to be pushing the products that Aaliyah tells us to push. Oh yeah, and now we don't have to try anything out. Yeah. Just have that freedom of just read the script.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Now, here this is that we'll end because uh we've spent a lot of time talking about the social media aspect. Now, Aaliyah has graciously um she actually she actually loves she is gracious, she actually loves our podcast. Obviously, she had some things that um she wishes we would change. Uh mostly she's like, you know, you guys talk about guests, but you don't have that many, and the guests you have had have been uh so-so at best. And then she gave us a whole list of of things. So she's gonna let us host the podcast. Mm-hmm. And then the leading up to it, she'll she'll do all the scheduling of like, hey, you know, Maury's gonna be on. Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

And she's given us a list of the questions.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Yeah, the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Um and so we'll I mean, I'm sure we're gonna we're gonna do our best to to still keep it lighthearted. Mm-hmm. Um It will probably be heavily edited. Um yeah, I mean thankfully I don't have to edit it anymore, so that was a pro and and and one of the perks, one of the immediate perks is what we mentioned is we got new equipment instantly. Instantly. Like the day before this is finalized, we got brand new mics in the mail.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

She was like, go ahead and tell all your I mean you okay? Okay. I don't want this to feel a heavy. I right yeah, I mean, I don't like she was just like I don't want to use the verbiage she used because it was kind of belittling to our audience. Um but she was like here just use these great mics to tell your little audience um that you you now bow down to a new queen. And I mean, I may have paraphrased a little bit, that's what I got out of it.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Yeah, I mean, because you didn't actually see what she said, I was trying to explain it to you, and that's yeah, that's probably how it came across.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Yeah. But I mean every time I have a doubt, I just open my banking app and all those doubts go away.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

I'm I'm um although we we have found a way to laugh through this because it has been it's been an emotional thing, and um I usually just take a watt of hundred dollar bills and just put it to my face as I'm laughing. See, I'm not I'm not quite like Brad in that sense. I just I started making these um um like no queen protesting signs.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Oh that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

I I didn't go outside with them or anything.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

It was just uh I'm very pro-Queen Queen Aaliyah.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Yes, after a few days of wrestling with it.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

It took you a while. It really did.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Brad was like, where do I sign? And I'm like, Brad, can we talk about this for five seconds? And he was like, Yeah, uh, where do I sign and which pen do I use?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah, and I'm like I literally counted down five, four, three, two, one.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

But this is my baby, and he's kind of like, This is this this whole thing is like my little baby, and Brad is kind of like the stepdad. He's he's you know, he is a father figure. Dad that stepped up.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

And sold that baby for some money. But it's it's my biological baby, though. I mean, you you got something. Uh Dusty Diggy had a little bit more money than I did. It's only fair that I got 70%. Yeah. It's okay. It's only fair. It's okay. I mean, I I I will use my 30%.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

I do 80% of the work, but only got 70. Mm-hmm. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Well, Brad, I mean, it it's you know what kind of interesting are these cruise deals that are happening right now in the Mediterranean. That's what's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Brad, you're always finding new ways to make me smile.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

To take my mind off of it. You man, I will uh you want me to buy you a cruise? I will buy you a cruise. I I got you. Just me and you. Just me.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Can we meet up with BJ Mandrell?

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Man, we can't tell him. Oh, we should surprise him.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Because he's gonna want some money. Well, pfft for what? You know what? You know what we never discussed in this deal with her? The music rights. Oh, dude. The bench dueler melodies.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

That's right, we keep our catalog.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

That's really gonna be the only saving grace for us, I think, if we play our cards right.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yeah. So y'all go listen to the albums on Spotify. I don't care if you listen to the podcast anymore because we already made our money. But those songs, that's where that's our residuals. That's what they call it in the business.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Yeah. Um, we're I'm thankful for uh BJ's contacts in the music. He's the way we set that up uh from a legal standpoint, it really um it's gonna be nice for us, let's just say that. Really is because this money's gonna run out. It's gonna take a while, but it will run out. I mean I'm pretty I'm I'm down half. And here's the thing is like, how do we what do we do? What do we do with our with our with our shop here, you know? I think we're going to probably just close to the public for sure. Mm-hmm. And probably start doing some wholesale accounts, but like we'll be real picky about it. Right. Like if they send us We ain't doing hollow chains, that's for sure. Yeah, it's like nah. And so we'll just reserve the right to be like, nah, we ain't doing that. No, yeah. And we'll I'll probably just do like only ring sizings down. Yep, yep. We get to keep everything. We get to keep the little piece of gold we cut out.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

But I don't want it sized down too far because I don't want to be tightening stones all day.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Like we'll we'll give a great wholesale rate if you are sizing rings down one size or less. Yep. And the less stones, the better the pricing. We get to keep the gold. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Um we're not touching an Invicta for the rest of our lives. Oh, yeah, no, no, no batteries. No more watch batteries. You know, just enough to kind of keep us busy and because we do love this industry, we love what we do. So it'll just kind of keep us. I'm just excited to get my second laser because Brad, we just have one laser and Brad has been using it. Mm-hmm. And it's become like his thing, and so now I get to have one. Um, I don't even think we'll touch a torch anymore, to be honest. Why would you?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Well, I mean, that's peasant work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

I think I might get a laser for my house. That's true. We could just like um FaceTime each other while we're working and work at our houses.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yeah, yeah. Well, while I'm eating some caviar.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Oh, Brad, this is I don't want this to drag on. We've ripped. We ripped the band aid off. Yeah. Um we really do uh appreciate what you've got the journey you have gone with us. And um, I don't know, maybe we'll pop up from now and then under our real names. Yeah. On JHJ, probably the only place you can find us now. Um, except Brad, because he hates Facebook because he's a boomer.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

He he wouldn't be able to he just I told Aliyah, you know, throw me another seven digits and I will be on. Facebook.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Yeah. I think it's best if we just it's just a hard cutoff. Yeah. But we are looking forward to these weekly episodes, so at least you guys will get to hear our voices.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Um and and uh I mean honestly, she's she's probably just gonna AR our voices so that way she can have complete control. And so it won't really be us, it'll just be our voices.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

I did not think about that.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Hey. That way we don't want to show up for an hour a week, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 22:29

I think we might. You know, we could pivot and start our own uh lab grown uh diamond uh laboratory. Mm-hmm. Just grow diamonds. Just grow.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Why not?

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Sell them to the trade at super discounted prices. Because right now, the only way to really really do well in this industry is if you have a a huge um backing, financial backing. And now that we have that, we can kind of take some risks.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Lab grown is the future.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

I'm thinking lab grown pliers. Lab grown, like they're actual diamond pliers. Just everything that's on your bench just made from lab grown diamonds.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

I mean, uh, that's what I'm putting my money into.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

And we still have that uh the backup plan that we mentioned. Was it last episode? The double oak diamonds. That's still exploring that.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

I don't know if that's a thing. Copyright pending, uh-huh. Trademark.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Trademark pending. Yeah. Well, Brad, um the reality now that we've said the words, the reality has set in.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Yeah. And I have got to get to the golf course.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Yeah. So, I mean, I don't think we're gonna play our little happy intro, but um. I mean, I'm happy. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, we're just gonna this is just where it ends.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

I'm sure she'll work on a different theme song for us.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Yeah, we'll put that on her.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Alright, well, man, we gotta I don't know what we have to do next.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

We don't have nothing to do.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

I mean, we're not opening the shop, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Um going to I'm gonna press stop on the recording here in one second, and I will grab my luggage and I will see you on the cruise ship, Brad. Peace.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

We rich.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

There we go.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Alright, how's that? Too loud, too quiet.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah, you can turn my headphones down a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Okay, let's see.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Turn it down, turn it up, turn it down, turn. I don't know how I wanna talk into it. Alright. Let's see. This is I'm usually like leaning back. Alright. At the boom stand.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

I don't have a boom stand right now. Let me finish this coffee first. So, alright, so this is how I'm pretty much gonna talk. Is that good? Yeah, it's good. How are you gonna talk? Like this?

SPEAKER_00 25:29

I'm gonna talk like this.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

I'm gonna at least get this going. Are you ready for this, Brad?

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Yep. Are you ready for this?

SPEAKER_02 25:42

It's gonna be tough.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

I feel like this mic picks up everything. Well, like I'm far back and um Yeah, so that's the I do have our um I don't know if I have our gain up too much.

unknown 25:55

Can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Yeah, I dialed him back just a teeny winksy bit.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Teeny Winksy. Does it sound bad? Um no. Now I'm a little quieter. Just turn my headphones up. Turn my headphones Dun dun dun dun dun dun.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

That's sweet, sweet spot. Sweet spot. A sweet spot of tea.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Okay, my coffee's almost done.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

About time.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Um turn my phone on, do not disturb. Okay. Okay, are we ready? We're ready. All right, we're gonna start in three, two, one.